


In between streetlights and falling stars

by chaoticneurobivergent



Series: Keithtober 2018 [2]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: (the comfort is gonna be in chap 2), Canon Compliant, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gen, set during s7
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-08
Updated: 2018-10-19
Packaged: 2019-07-27 16:02:46
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,437
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16222502
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chaoticneurobivergent/pseuds/chaoticneurobivergent
Summary: Keith had always spent a lot of time dreaming of other places, so much it was now an afterthought, the usual routine: the hope and want were well nestled inside his heart, until he moved and was met with the same disappointment. So he didn’t know why he had kept expecting the next time to be different when it was so clear he could have seen it coming.May it be Earth, or space, both places had hurt him and damaged him in ways he didn’t fully grasped yet. And now that he had seen the whole universe, Keith didn’t know what to think nor what to do; because now he had tried it all, and there was no places left to put his hope into.





	1. space and stars

**Author's Note:**

> for **day 8 - space and stars**  
>  if vld isn't gonna address the psychological consequences of its events, then I guess I will
> 
> this is pretty angsty tbh, and the comfort part of this hurt/comfort will only come in chap2!

Kosmo whined once they reached upstairs, Keith could feel the tiredness under his paws in every step - there was the same in his own. They probably could have teleported themselves as soon as the meeting ended, avoiding in the process the cadets’ curious questions on their way out and finding peace and quiet right when they needed it. Now Keith was arpenting the Garrison’s corridors with the deadliest stare he could manage, not letting another innocent “so how was it up there?” slowed him down.

“We're almost there.” Keith whispered to Kosmo on his side.

Teleporting did come to his mind, but something in his guts was stopping him from hugging his space wolf and doing it. It felt wrong, somehow. Though as he turned in a corner, his body remembering exactly the way to his old dorm room, even years after, something didn’t click either.

The Garrison had been one of the place he lived in the longest, and as Shiro took him under his wing, it had almost felt like a home. A home he abandoned nevertheless. Or a home which abandoned him once again. He used to sneak into these corridors on his orange uniform, used to walk fast to avoid getting caught, or even used to sit there to read. But now his uniform felt tight, even if it was a brand new one. The collar was suffocating, the weight on the shoulders was too light to feel like his, and Keith couldn't wait to get rid of it and go back to his red cropped jacket - or literally anything else.

When Keith had asked for the key, he had been told no one had used the room after him. And surely as he entered, everything was exactly as he left it: empty shelves, clean bed, and a familiar spicy smell. A glimpse of sunlight coming from the half closed shutters made a puddle of sunlight on the bed, and Kosmo jumped to warm up under it. Keith followed, laying on his back and reaching a hand to pet the wolf as he let his eyes take the room. He would have to put sheets on later, unpack the few things he took from the castle, and then he’d stay here, for who knows how long.

His gaze stopped on the ceiling, and Keith froze. He barely felt the soft fur of Kosmo against his fingers as a heaviness grown from his chest spreading quickly in his whole body. Keith struggled to understand what it was, he picked from the few words he could find: irrational lack of oxygen, loss, anger, untold truth, fear, but none was enough to translate the sinking feeling of dread taking over him as he stared at the glow-in-the-dark stars forgotten on his ceiling.

Everything stayed still for a while. Keith tried to pet Kosmo again, he buried his hand to feel his heartbeat, hoping it’ll help his own breathing to start again and ease his nausea. But Keith couldn’t take his eyes off the stars, he stared until his vision got blurry and he was still staring after repeating himself to _stop it stop it stop it_. He only moved to run into the bathroom and throw up.

 

Keith used to love watching the stars. Nights in the desert were times made of heavy quiet, dry cold, and sneaky animals, and Keith early learned they looked quite dangerous only to protect themselves. Nights in the desert, as it turned out, were mainly times of peace and beauty, which only started to get scary when Keith had to move out.

As a child, Keith would sit in the porch with his dad, or lay in the sand on soft blankets, and he remembered how it always managed to calm him down. Everytime the weight of the day was too much and Keith would start to lose his temper, the stars would show up soon after on a dark blue sky. They shined brightly, and Keith found in them a relief and a sense of belonging he struggled to find on Earth.

He remembered wanting to be as close of the stars as he possibly could - a poisonous wish he would like to take back. Space was immense and endless in an intoxicating way. It was everything he thought it would be and more, and for a while Keith had even been high just on the thought of being here. Stars were still as bright as in his childhood, and there was a room in the castle where the whole ceiling was glass and he could lose himself into the sight. And Keith used to take every occasions to go there, and it was able to calm him down and connect him back to Earth, and it was beautiful and sweet.

But Keith learned the hard way that being lost in an ocean of stars, while seeming pretty exciting, was an awful experience. Maybe all he had wanted, really, was to be as far of Earth as he possibly could.

 

Keith stayed a long hour in the bathroom trying to ignore the sobs knocking on his throat - until there were too much.

“So how was it up there?” they all kept asking him. He knew they expected answers to fulfill their own dreams, words to use to complete their fantasy and push away the doubts that maybe they weren’t made for this. Keith hadn’t replied at first, not wanting to lie and not wanting to have a breakdown before them. But when they had insisted, he said it was amazing, it was gorgeous, and that some nights he was able to forget his responsibilities and enjoy everything this journey in space gave him. It wasn’t untrue; space did give him a lot, and he knew now that maybe he had always belonged to the stars. Though the thought didn’t make him smile anymore, instead it urged fear on deeper under his skin.

When he emerged from the bathroom on trembling legs, Keith got back to his bed and stood on his tiptoe to reach the ceiling with the tip of his fingers. He took down every single plastic star mocking him, throwing them on the floor one by one. Then he gathered them up again, opened his window and let them fall from the second floor - enough to make them burnt, he hoped. He wanted them far, far away from his view and far, far away from his thoughts. He had seen enough stars for a lifetime, they had played with him enough. Now he just wanted to breathe.


	2. return to earth

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> and here's some comfort for **day 19 - return to Earth** ;)

Kosmo looked at him with concern when he opened the door of his dorm to leave. Keith sighed, knowing well that he was doing the opposite of what he should be doing, and Kosmo knew it too, and literally everyone would have been able to tell him that. Still, Keith smiled at his wolf and left, walking up the stairs until he reached the roof. He sat on the edge and looked down, down, down. Refusing to raise his eyes even a little, even when the pinkish lights started to make the grass sparkled and he knew that the sky would look beautiful. The sun was coming down, which meant the moon was coming up, followed by endless villainous stars. Keith didn’t want to see them.

He didn’t want to think about them.

He didn’t want to be that close to them.

He didn’t know why he even came up there in the first place. 

Habit, probably. Because the roof used to be a nice quiet place to hide. To fill a gap, maybe. Because the roof was high and with his legs hanging in thin air, Keith could pretend he was back in space. 

Keith heard steps coming towards him, a stop and a small “oh”, then the steps again, a bit quicker. 

“Hey man!” Lance’s voice was cheerful as he sat next to Keith. “How are you doing?”

“Good.” Keith lied. His voice was hoarse as he hadn’t say a word in hours, and soft cries escaping his lips in a bathroom didn’t count as speaking. He still didn’t look up at Lance, fixed on the moisted grass and the growing shadows. “Shouldn’t you be with your family?”

Lance shrugged. “Needed a break.” Keith didn’t believe him. Lance hadn’t left his family since they went back, which was totally understandable, and Keith was glad to see him smiling around them, because he had missed them so much. Maybe families could be overwhelming, but Keith doubted Lance needed “a break” after only a day. Lance coughed and - ah, here it was: “Also.. I was kinda kidnapped by Kosmo and brought here. So. I’m assuming you’re not that good, or something. Am I wrong?” 

So Kosmo did that now. The heaviness grew in his throat, but Keith forced through it. He couldn’t really denied it once again, not when his state was written in his burning eyes anyway, not when  _ Lance _ momentarily left his _ family _ for  _ him _ . 

“It’s just..” his voice cracked. “I thought..” He took a big breath, tried again. “I thought Earth would feel good. I thought returning would be this.. amazing, undepictable, feeling. But I know what I feel right now. And it’s dullness.” And loneliness. And overall sadness. And if he looked deeper, he could even find a growing homesickness for a place he couldn’t even name. The same old feelings he thought he was done with, but they came back stronger, uglier. 

This wasn’t how Keith had imagined returning to Earth. He thought that now, with his family, and all the years, and everything that had happened since he was a young boy lost in the middle of a desert, maybe Earth would finally feel right. But there was nothing right about the Garrison’s meetings and the promise of more battles. And what made him want to cry even more was that he didn’t think a peaceful Earth would have felt right either. 

“You know,” Lance started in a soft voice - it was sweet, but almost sad. “We’re gonna go back in space anyway. If it’s the place that feels like home for y-”

“But it doesn’t either!” Keith had finally looked up, straight into Lance’s eyes. He knew Lance could now see his red eyes and the anger behind his frown. Lance was staring back, and Keith saw genuine concern all over his face - and he hated himself for snapping. But it was just so frustrating, and he didn’t know how a place who hurt him that much could ever feel good again - it couldn’t, which meant he had lost a home, once again. “Sorry,” he mumbled and brought his legs back up to bury his head in his arms. He stayed silent for a while. He felt Lance leaning back on his hands, waiting for him to take his time. 

Keith felt selfish, this was all so stupid. He wished Kosmo hadn’t brought Lance here because now it was awkward, and he was preventing Lance from going back to the Earth he had missed so much. His voice came back in a hushed whisper. “How do you look at the stars, and not feel terrified?” He wasn’t sure Lance had heard his words, but he hoped so - he wasn’t ready to say them again. 

“I guess I don’t look at them in the same way, not exactly. We can’t, right? Stuff are different. Everything moved on without us, and it’s weird now. But we moved forward too, so I think that’s just life.” Keith hummed. He didn’t quite get where Lance was going with this, but his voice was soothing. “Stars.. they had always been more than just that. They reminded me how beautiful the world was and how even more beautiful I could help it to be. Now they remind me of what I did, of how far I went. It’s a promise. I look at them, and it’s calm, and they tell me it’s gonna be okay, because we already got through so much, and they tell me it’s worth it. I think I see hope in them?” Keith hummed again. It made sense. “What I’m saying is, hm, maybe you should look at them under a new meaning.” 

It made sense, repeated Keith to himself. A beautiful kind of sense, in an absurdly simple way. But Keith saw hopelessness and vulnerability in those lights. It was all his weaknesses, all his mistakes, all his doubts, that the stars mirrored at him. The hurt was pushing the good things out of his reach, and he would need way more time to get back to them. “I thought I saw a home. But then I looked back from there, and saw home  _ here _ . And now I’m here, and I don’t know anymore.”

Lance’s fingers reached for his chin and forced him to turn his head and look. The streetlights were on below, and their lights were reflecting into Lance’s eyes through a scattering of little stars - and Keith realized he didn’t mind those that much. 

“It doesn’t have to be one or the other,” Lance started, somehow getting what the confusing words Keith picked meant. “ _ You _ don’t have to be one or the other. Keith, you have always been much more than one thing. You can be both, or neither, and cherry pick from everything to be your own thing.” 

Keith felt lost all over again, and he didn’t like the idea of looking for yet another home, another place he belonged to. Right now, it seemed like a quest he would never fulfill. But he liked how Lance put it. Maybe there wasn’t a place for him somewhere, maybe there was never one at all. As painful as those thoughts were, they opened a whole new quest for him: maybe he just had to make it, to take the hope he used to find in the stars, and the family the space gave him, take the comforting scent of Earth, and the quiet times spent on the roof, and make it all his. Maybe he actually had to find other details, other tastes and colors, other places and people, and build his own home. 

The words flew easily from his throat this time, as the fresh air of the night was spreading inside his chest, and a small sheepish smile even reached his face. “Thank you.” And maybe one day he would be able to put new plastic stars on a brand new ceiling without feeling like he was dying - maybe he won’t ever. For now, at least, breathing was enough.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this was quite tricky to write bc I really didn't want for this story to be angsty in itself, but I couldn't just... "solve" Keith's trauma that quickly (or at all)  
> anyway, thank you for reading and I hope you enjoyed! pls leave a kudo and/or comment to let me know <3


End file.
